Crime in Šluknov region still rising

Usti nad Labem, North Bohemia, Sept 25 (CTK) - Crime rate in the Slunknov vicinity in north Bohemia is still slightly rising one year after anti-Romany demonstrations, regional police director Tomas Lansfeld said at a security conference Tuesday.

He said the police actions against the demonstrations from August 26 to October 2, 2011, cost some 71 million crowns.

The police then deployed 3524 people, including riot units from other regions, Lansfeld said.

He said property crime is stable and it is not rising as much as in the past three years, but violent crime is on the increase.

"The development of violent crime and crime against morality is unfavourable. It even starts to exceed the level that triggered last year's protests," regional governor Jana Vanhova said at the conference.

Crime rate rose by 17 percent in 2010-11. The growing crime and several attacks in which Romanies attacked members of the majority population according to the police were behind the full-scale outbreak of ethnic unrest.

The strongest demonstration against the Romany population was attended by some 2000 people.

The far-right Workers' Party of Social Solidarity (DSSS) connected its campaign ahead of the autumn regional elections in Varnsdorf in mid-September with anti-Romany slogans, but it only attracted 200 to 250 people, some of whom were locals while others came from all over the Czech Republic.

The police registered no breach of the peace even though the demonstrators walked past Romany-inhabited houses.